Sony to unveil professional disk

Sony Business Middle East & North Africa will unveil its professional disk technology early next year in the Middle East. Sony's new XDcam range of camcorders has been designed to record on the professional disk instead of the conventional tape.

Sony Business Middle East & North Africa will unveil its professional disk technology early next year in the Middle East. Sony's new XDcam range of camcorders has been designed to record on the professional disk instead of the conventional tape.

The disk, which is the same diameter as a DVD, gives the the same quality as tape and has a recording capacity of 23 G/bytes. However, the potential to improve a customer's workflow from acquisition and field editing to studio post-production is far ahead of what tape has been able to do so far. For one, it enables an end user to record in the DVcam format at 25 mbps or in the high resolution MPEG IMX mode at 50mbps. Secondly, when the disc records any footage, it makes two copies - one high resolution footage for studio editing and a low resolution proxy copy for quick editing on the field.

"This is quire revolutionary because right from the start, you can attach the workflow," explains Nigel Thompson, A/V marketing manager, Sony Business MEA. "The proxy can be transferred easily on the Ethernet and you can edit the proxy from wherever you are on your notebook. This brings the advantage of IT right into the heart of the AV world," he adds.

A journalist no longer has to wait to get to the broadcast studio to edit his footage. He can edit the proxy and store this on the professional disk, along with the complete footage. This can then be sent to the broadcast station, where the editing on the high resolution image can be done based on the journalist's EDL. This improves workflow efficiencies and enables a broadcaster to go on air much faster.

Currently, this technology can only be used on Sony Professional Disk camcorders like the XDcam products. However, Sony is planning to partner with other vendors to ensure more integration with the XDcam, assures Thompson.